


Reaper, Reaper

by quindolins



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Grim Reapers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23094166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quindolins/pseuds/quindolins
Summary: What makes a reaper different from the humans whose souls they guide?
Relationships: Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 5
Kudos: 54
Collections: SaiOu Winter Exchange 2019





	Reaper, Reaper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamingKatfish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamingKatfish/gifts).



No quantity of others' souls would ever be able to harness the energy and emotion needed to heal Saihara's own.

Well, that was assuming he even had one at all. If a monstrosity such as himself had _ever_ possessed a soul, then - him being a harbinger of death and all that mess - it had long since dissipated. Nonetheless, the concept of human mortality had a strange way of slithering through his every thought...

_Why is that?_ he pondered as he clutched his scythe. _Why does it continue to bother me?_

Saihara, using the tool as a means of support, got to his feet, feeling his heavy cloak drape itself over his clanking boots. A gentle tuft of wintry breeze stirred the nighttime air, twirling his hair and looser accessories in a wavy, atmospheric motion, and he moodily sighed at Mother Nature's gesture. _Thank you, but...I don't deserve such kindness._

He took a few steps forward and audibly heard dying grass crunch beneath his soles. All that lives has an end, he knew - even flora. He didn't dabble in plants himself, though; that was meant for a different sector of Grim Reapers. The sentiment, however, was generally shared among all of his kind: claiming an entity's life essence was never meant to be fun. The universe simply hadn't programmed the task to be that way.

_What makes us different from the humans we reap?_ Such was the question Saihara had been asking himself since the very beginning, or at least for as long as he could remember. He'd come to basic conclusions over the millennia - _they are constructed of flesh and blood, whereas we are but the energies of the cosmos; they have something to live for, while we exist solely to sever that motivation; they harbor the power to, for the most part, determine their own living fates, in contrast to our pre-determined lines of duty;_ et cetera - but they all seemed incomplete, like a critical detail was missing. Yet...what in Hell's name could possibly be-

As Saihara contemplated this deeply existential predicament, a sudden sensation of alertness struck him like a bolt of desert lightning - and amid it, he observed the incoming vision of his next soul to snatch.

* * *

_"Oh...? Maaya-chan? What are you doing here, so late at night? Are you scared of the bed bugs?"_

_The bearer of the initial questions - a teen-aged boy dressed in ragged, black-and-white checkered garments and whose grape-purple hair swirled upward like inverted whirlpools - cocked his head as he turned to face a high-school girl. His expression was calm and composed, though he was in a slight panic as well. Getting out of this one was going to be difficult, he knew...but that was okay, because, after all, he-_

_"You know damn well why I'm here, Ouma-kun," the girl replied, getting herself into a stance Saihara had seen in many previous visions, across countless contexts. "Don't act so oblivious."_

_"Hmm?" Ouma hummed, his face melting into a more neutral expression. "Well, I'm sorry, Maamaa, but I'm afraid I-"_

_"Don't. Call me. Maamaa." Maaya whipped out a knife as she hissed the words through clenched teeth. Ouma flinched upon seeing her blade, but he retained his quirky demeanor on the exterior. Besides, even if this ended as horribly as he anticipated, he had a backup plan, which was-_

_"Woah, there," he said, holding up a hand. "No need for violence..."_

_Evidently, this was all Ouma needed to say to tip Maaya over the edge._

* * *

Saihara had long since desensitized himself to the sight of blood, but after the vision finally concluded as quickly as it had begun, he felt, for some strange reason, shaky from it. "How depressing..." he murmured. What was it about this particular sight, in this particular situation, that was making him feel the way he was? Like with many other little questions, he wasn't sure of the answer.

_Well, I'd better get going - time never waits._

With a running start, he broke open a rift in reality and - via the swirls of spectrum-transcending colors before him - ventured on his way to Ouma's body, gracefully leaping over the unseen barriers that would have hindered anyone else.

* * *

_Whoosh_ , went the air as Saihara arrived at the back of the very alley he'd seen in his vision; _clank_ , went his footwear against the mucky pavement. The darkness shrouded the otherwise bland chaos around him in a sort of ominous, moon-tinted edge, as though it was beckoning for more cases like poor Ouma's. _What a dreary place at which to die..._ he thought to himself.

After making sure he was in the right place, Saihara summoned his scythe and began to walk ahead, into both the told and the untold mysteries of the night. A crow cawed its standard caw as the Grim Reaper made his way down the alley, setting the tone as a morbid one indeed. How intriguingly fitting; how impeccably timed.

What kind of person is - was - Ouma? _Judging from the vision, it seems he was somewhat ditsy...somewhat...lackadaisical, maybe? Hmmm...I'll know when I get there, I suppose._

Saihara rounded a corner, and - speak of the Devil! - it would appear he had reached the destined location.

Only thing is...

There was no corpse anywhere in sight.

"What the-?" he gasped. "Ouma? Where are you?"

He turned his head in every direction he could, trying to find the body...but there was not so much as an aura to indicate a death had just transpired.

There was only a small pool of still-fresh blood that emanated an energy Saihara had never known to exist prior.

* * *

So began the cycle of the cat chasing the rat but failing every time.

Saihara received visions of Ouma dying again and again and again, with no consistent pattern to their frequency. Each time, he would traverse the world in an instant to reap the boy's soul - and each time, he would arrive too late to perform the task. It was an enigmatic occurrence at first, but as days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months, it began to grow quite burdensome.

Was this a test the universe had put in place for him?

And if so, the meaning of this trial...what even was it?

* * *

One fateful day, after receiving his umpteenth vision of Ouma, Saihara hesitantly made his way to the death spot. _This has long since become insanity_ , he silently groaned. Nonetheless, after tearing open the rift and arriving at this new location - a field of beautiful flowers in a foreign country experiencing a mild summer - he trekked to the spot where the cryptic boy had supposedly died this time.

Saihara's expectations were rather low...which is why he was so stunned when he actually managed to find what he was looking for.

* * *

By some miracle, Saihara managed to reach Ouma just in time to see the boy pick himself up again. The Reaper, underneath the veil of his hooded cloak, was absolutely baffled; what a turn of events this had ended up being! But...what in the world...

"A-are you Ouma?" he asked him, stammering.

The boy, in the midst of dusting floral debris off his apparel, whirled around and tilted his head at the entity before him. "Huuuuuh? Who might you be?" he asked.

"I'm..." Saihara paused. "Wait, hold up - aren't you supposed to be, you know, _dead_?"

Ouma shrugged. "I mean, probably? I'm as lost on that as you are, I'm afraid."

"What do you mean...?"

"Stabbing, suffocation, mutilation, or just leaving me alone in the wild...no matter how people try to kill me, I always awaken in one piece, very much alive. Been the case for as long as I can remember. Don't know why in any sense of the word, but does it really matter?"

_...Immortality...? No, it can't be-_

Yet it made sense. The aura in the blood that first night...it hadn't been of any ordinary mortal. It had been of something beyond words.

"Who are you, though, Cloak Person? You never answered that question."

"Ahhhh!" Saihara lowered his hood, exposing his dull yet newly hopeful eyes. "I'm...Shuichi Saihara, and...you know what a Grim Reaper is, right? Well...yea..."

"Nishishi~" Ouma giggled. "Well, then, helloooo, Saihara-chan!"

The words froze the Reaper in his place.

No one had ever called him Saihara-chan before.

In the past, they'd all been too consumed with post-mortem despair to care about who he was.

But...Ouma didn't seem dead? As a matter of fact, he seemed quite perky. Quite the opposite of dead.

_Oh, my goodness..._

"Hi, Ouma-kun," Saihara replied at last, feeling tears of joy begin to well up.

A grin lit up Ouma-kun's face. "So, Saihara-chan, what's up?"

* * *

Saihara-chan and Ouma-kun sat on a hilltop overlooking the field, watching the sun set over the horizon. They'd spent most of the day sharing their stories with each other, and it had become clear that the boy was just as ecstatic as the Reaper - finally, someone who could sympathize with the other!

Ouma-kun had lived many lives in the past, apparently, but every death or attempted murder was his cue to abandon his current state of living. As a result, he he gradually learned not to get too attached to anything, as painful as it was to be reserved - they would disappear from his eyes and mind as quickly as they had entered their sight.

Saihara could relate - all the people he'd met until now had been dead. Attachment would only spell disaster; he existed solely to guide these souls to the afterlife. He was not meant to know human connections.

Or so he'd previously thought.

In that moment, the question came back to Saihara: _What makes us different from the humans we reap?_

But this time, he had an answer.

_In short, nothing._

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully this was okay ;w;


End file.
